


Snape LDWS Drabbles

by voxangelus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, community: snape-ldws
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxangelus/pseuds/voxangelus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Going through old LJ entries and finding fic you forgot about: bonus. 
> 
> The fic is actually decent and deserving of archiving: double bonus!

In the nine short months I've sat behind this desk, my hands have come to know its surface. To be sure, it is worn from centuries of Heads before me and their own worries, cares, and work. Here, above the right-hand drawers, is a little burl knot in the oak, worn smooth by fingers of men and women infinitely more suited to this position than I have ever hoped to be. There are nicks and gouges in the wood that could surely be smoothed out with magic, but it seems my predecessors felt as I feel—the imperfections and remnants are a tangible connection and nostalgic homage to the past, to times both dark and bright.

I clutch the edge of the desk as I feel the burn of the Mark skitter along my nerves, branding itself into my flesh anew. It does not matter. I welcome the pain, more penance for deeds both done and left undone. He is coming, and I do not expect to live beyond this night, no matter who prevails. I have not done enough to protect her son, and for that I deserve to die, forgotten and alone. The fire in my flesh fades to a dull throb, and I rise. 

It is time.


	2. Photographic Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if it's all a dream?

It isn't the fact he needs trifocal lenses which depresses him as he ages and his sight worsens.

Nor is it that he has to use magnifiying spells on his books and notes.

It's the loss of being able to see and identify the portraits arranged upon the mantel with a glance from across the room. Oh, he can still see the frames from where he sits in his armchair; the blurry bits within signifying his family members and those whom he has allowed himself to call friend, but even if he sidles up close to the mantel, it's becoming harder to read each small face.

Many years ago, there was only one frame with two people in it, then one frame with three, then four. Then there were two and three frames, evidence of his family, the one he thought he would never have, growing up and away. The few portraits slowly became a sea, with weddings, babies, graduations, and other celebrations of life, love, and learning.

He fears the day he is no longer able to see the portraits at all, even in his mind's eye. Perhaps that will be the day he wakes up and realizes the last eighty years of his life have been a cruelly beautiful dream.


End file.
